Horton

Thread

  1. Re: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 1998-10-27T22:42:31Z

    Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
>> Namely: I think we have gotten much too willing to use configure to
>> rewrite subsidiary files all over the distribution, rather than ensuring
>> that the configuration decisions are expressed in a central place.

> I disagree here.  If people want to twiddle, they can after configure. 
> People would much rather spell params to configure, rather than to edit
> Makefiles.

I agree with you, up to a point.  What happens if configure makes the
wrong choice for a given system?  For a person not familiar with
autoconf (which is most people) fixing its output is likely to be easier
than trying to fix the script.

> ... but they MUST be required to supply the proper flags to
> configure.  We can't go down the road of allowing them to avoid the
> 'configure' flags, and somehow enable things in Makefile.custom.  There
> is no logical way to do that, and unless we want to prevent 'configure'
> from doing the things it does so well, we will have to live with that
> limitation.

I certainly agree we should use configure for what it's designed to do,
namely make intelligent configuration settings.  I'm just saying that
it is better style to record each configuration choice in only one place
(or at least, as few places as possible) rather than make a bunch of
copies in a bunch of not-easily-found files.

This has advantages even if you don't consider hand adjustments to be
important.  Right now, if you want to find out what configure did on a
given system, you need to look at twenty different files.  (Some will
give you no new information, but which ones?)  Maintenance and support
will be easier if there are only a couple of files that configure
changes, and everything else just reads those files during build.

			regards, tom lane

  2. RE: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Taral <taral@mail.utexas.edu> — 1998-10-27T22:46:53Z

    > I certainly agree we should use configure for what it's designed to do,
> namely make intelligent configuration settings.  I'm just saying that
> it is better style to record each configuration choice in only one place
> (or at least, as few places as possible) rather than make a bunch of
> copies in a bunch of not-easily-found files.

No. There's one file, if the configure script is right...

./config.cache

:)

Taral

  3. Re: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> — 1998-10-27T23:14:21Z

    > I certainly agree we should use configure for what it's designed to do,
> namely make intelligent configuration settings.  I'm just saying that
> it is better style to record each configuration choice in only one place
> (or at least, as few places as possible) rather than make a bunch of
> copies in a bunch of not-easily-found files.
> 
> This has advantages even if you don't consider hand adjustments to be
> important.  Right now, if you want to find out what configure did on a
> given system, you need to look at twenty different files.  (Some will
> give you no new information, but which ones?)  Maintenance and support
> will be easier if there are only a couple of files that configure
> changes, and everything else just reads those files during build.

But your Makefiles become little 'sed' monsters, making it _more_
confusing for people to edit the Makefiles.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

  4. RE: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Taral <taral@mail.utexas.edu> — 1998-10-27T23:23:12Z

    > But your Makefiles become little 'sed' monsters, making it _more_
> confusing for people to edit the Makefiles.

hmm... It's such a shame we can't insist on gmake.

Taral

  5. Re: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> — 1998-10-27T23:24:45Z

    [Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> > But your Makefiles become little 'sed' monsters, making it _more_
> > confusing for people to edit the Makefiles.
> 
> hmm... It's such a shame we can't insist on gmake.

We do insist on gmake.  Can't compile without it.

Like the term "sed monsters"?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

  6. Re: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-10-28T02:00:06Z

    On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Tom Lane wrote:

> Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> >> Namely: I think we have gotten much too willing to use configure to
> >> rewrite subsidiary files all over the distribution, rather than ensuring
> >> that the configuration decisions are expressed in a central place.
> 
> > I disagree here.  If people want to twiddle, they can after configure. 
> > People would much rather spell params to configure, rather than to edit
> > Makefiles.
> 
> I agree with you, up to a point.  What happens if configure makes the
> wrong choice for a given system?  For a person not familiar with
> autoconf (which is most people) fixing its output is likely to be easier
> than trying to fix the script.

	Huh?  Can you give an example of a Makefile that configure
modifies that could pose a problem?

	Off the top of my head, the only stuff that configure modifies is
stuff like backend/port/Makefile, to add in OS-missing functions...for the
most part, that should be *all* that configure modifies...and, ya, we
could move that into Makefile.global...

Marc G. Fournier                                
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

  7. RE: [HACKERS] Configure problem, redux (was Re: TCL installation troubles)

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-10-28T02:01:08Z

    On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Taral wrote:

> > But your Makefiles become little 'sed' monsters, making it _more_
> > confusing for people to edit the Makefiles.
> 
> hmm... It's such a shame we can't insist on gmake.

	Huh?  We do insist on gmake:

> /usr/bin/make
You must use GNU make to use Postgres.  It may be installed
on your system with the name 'gmake'.

NOTE:  If you are sure that you are using GNU make and you are
       still getting this message, you may simply need to run
       the configure program.

Marc G. Fournier                                
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org